We should not permit rights holders to use copyright law to create new powers for themselves. Even as we urge consumers to respect the law--and we should--large copyright owners have the same obligation.

Scaring their customers is not educating them. Misleading and threatening them, at the end of the day, hurts everyone, including the copyright holders themselves.

Update: I've received an email from Patrick Ross, Executive Director of The Copyright Alliance with what he felt were corrections. I've made minor updates.

His letter to me follows, with permission:

Hi Russell,

It was an easily made mistake, but Maura Corbett is not an attorney. Rather, she is a PR person with a Washington-based PR firm called Qorvis Communications. Digital Freedom is run out of Qorvis, and is funded by members such as the CEA and CCIA. The CCIA filed the FTC complaint, and Maura held up posters as exhibitions at the CCIA press conference. I like Maura, have known her for years and find her smart and friendly, but I’m disappointed she didn’t make clear that in praising CCIA in this piece, she is praising the organization that has contracted with her to promote this.